What is inspiring me Today

Inspiration comes in many different forms, some peruse the Internet, others search books, and others find it in nature. I find it in all these places, but mostly, I am inspired by real flesh and blood breathing people.

Today the object of my admiration is R. My visits with her always leave me wanting to do better and be better. Why? Well mainly because she is her own person, unafraid to bloom her vivid hothouse personality in a Walmart garden center world. She offers no apologies for her differences and her greatness, she just is.

I read once that as long as you have access to a library, you can do anything you want. R. takes that a step further and acts on the fact that if she can imagine it, she can create it. "Do you realize how clever all this is?" I ask her as she explains the elegant curtained pavilion she is creating. "Well, I make some colossal mistakes as well as some great successes." I think . . . How wonderful to try. To be unafraid of failure, of power tools, or the unknown. Here are a few of the things that inspired me today.

• A lemon tree fragrant with the scent of lemon blossoms growing several tiny lemons. IN THIS CLIMATE!!!!

• An ingenious umbrella stand/ concrete filled flower pot that allows drainage and keeps the umbrellas from breaking or tipping in the terrible winds that fill our corridor
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• Masonry... brick walls, plaster, concrete works, and stone walls.
• A mother of elementary children who finds time to paint. No she's not an artist ( a trained one anyway). She is just creative and figures things out.
  
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• This same friend who is never proprietary with her information spent time giving me a lesson in canvas preparation in single color, different value background.
• Having the eye to see a treasure at Goodwill or the D.I. and transform it into an ottoman that is a work of art.
• A child gently taught the art of apple cutting.

To live life with no excuses. To find your passion and fill it while serving others. To create. To shine in greatness without fear of the grasp of the jealous. This is happiness.